Thursday, September 11, 2014

Today I listened to Gabriel's Oboe over and
over. It’s the theme from the film, The
Mission. When I made my confirmation, it was required viewing. Rarely does
a film pack so many questions into one story. My mother and father saw it the
theater. She recalls the two of them walking New York’s streets for hours afterwards.
Neither of them had words for it. Instead, they walked in saturated silence.

The story is of a Spanish mission that thrived in the Amazon
during Colonial times. It’s success threatened authorities both governmental
and clerical.The powerful never falter
in their desire to squash the truly free. It is their greatest fear. When it
comes time to defend the mission, two priests fight alongside the native people.
One fights by sword, the other by prayer. For both of them, the truly good
sought fairness in all things, opening themselves to criticism and ostracism in
their quest for right. Often, the free, possessing a power of a different nature,
fail. Neither man survived.

I can’t imagine the film without it’s score. Music tells the
story through dense emotions, those we never named.It’s record filled our Upper East Side
Apartment for weeks. The opening mimics the first sound after the quiet heard
at sunrise. It floats as more instruments join, each creating a different chill
and charge. Then, the chorus perfects the pieces, coming just shy of exploding
and destroying it. Nuance at its most raw. The build up reminds me of the
promise tomorrow brings when today feels wasted. But no effort is ever wasted,
no kindness to small to matter. Daddy taught me this. Mommy perfected it.

Music makes visceral memory. Bow over string transports me
through time even more than the smell of the beach.At times, I believed I could smell my father
on a wave of sound. When something amazing plays, I still do. Sound wraps
around my shoulders. It rests against my back and squeezes my ribs. When I look
up, no one is there.

My father’s best friend, Peter, said it best. “We went to a
Irish bar on the East Side – a dark, smoky place. We drank and listened to
Irish War ballads, not quite like Tommy Clancy. It was the most moving experience
I ever had in my life. I’ve searched for years to find that music.” To search
is to know you still love.

Before Ellie was born, Brian and I traveled to South East
Asia. In Hoi An, a beach town in Vietnam, I woke up before dawn. I sat outside
with a camera and watched the world wake up. Fishermen put out to sea in round,
wicker boats. A mother held her baby in her lap. They clapped together. The
quiet was perfect. It is in quiet that
we build connections with another.

These images and moments are so complete unto themselves;
they seem impossible in worlds of noise and glowing screens. But it was this
world of moments and images that I inhabited with Daddy. Our time was
uninterrupted. When we were together, we belonged in a world entirely of our
own making. Only recently did I learn that I can go there whenever I wish, but
the ticket is always round-trip and I travel there alone.